The Politics Of Experience
by Abyssal1
Summary: Two mechs, one elected, one predestined, must fake a sacred marriage to placate two very different populations. (Note TW: ALL, Mature Readers only please, cross posted with my new account "StoneIdol"
1. Chapter 1

_**(NOTE: I am currently porting some of my newer work to the "StoneIdol" aacount. Please bear with me as we undergo these necessary changes!)**_

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**CHAPTER ONE**

#

You would think it validation enough, to be twice verified. There are those who have come to rule Cybertron with only half his acclaim. He's got both. The people have elected him. The Titan has spoken. He is a product of both democracy and prophecy.

One would think with all those sources, his power wouldn't be so Primus-damned hard to hold onto.

#

They've never said five words to each other four million years, and now Starscream has to talk to the Autobot leader every day.

They share terse conversations over the table. Starscream mocks him privately and publicly. He's the relic of a bygone age. He has no real purpose except to give the Camiens a distraction.

Optimus Prime hates him. The feeling is mutual. Sometimes Starscream toys with the idea of getting a City Speaker of his own. Get a Camien to bridge the gap between him and Prime. Get someone else to do the talking.

#

It was different for Megatron. He had that green spark in his chest, that load-bearing one-percenter. He never felt second best to anyone. Starscream is 100% Cold-Constructed knock-off. In the days of his creation him and a forged-bot like Optimus would not even have been permitted to speak.

Or more exactly, Starscream would not have been permitted to speak to _him_.

#

Sometimes those Autobot blue eyes will dart sideways. They'll slide up and down his frame, thieving the sight of him. Something despairing in that hot glance. Something sinful and starving. It's brief, but Starscream never misses it, and then they'll slide away, deeply ashamed, pretend to look somewhere else.

Starscream always feels slightly dirty after catching Optimus out. Doesn't know why.

#

In the days of his creation a forged bot could order a cold constructed one to service him sexually, and there was not much you could do about it.

Starscream had never permitted it. He'd fought every time. He'd done a hundred different cycles in prison before he ever saw the Senate.

It never meant much, his records. They expected criminality. That was how Cold-Constructeds were. Prone to violence.

#

He likes flirting with forged bots even as he despises them. There's an unspoken social injunction against a Forged mech feeling desire for a Cold Constructed one.

He likes it when the rusted elites look at him with open lust. He has weaponized his own beauty. He uses their desire against them. He will not return their feelings. It's what they don't understand.

#

Prime hinders Starscream's ambition at every opportunity. Every ambitious reach, and there's Megatron's old nemesis in the way, smug and secure in his leadership. Forged Autobot with the Matrix inside him.

Once Starscream grossly propositioned the Autobot leader for sex. It had been the tail-end of a drawn out argument. Some petty zoning policy turned into a moralistic diatribe, a deadlock. Optimus was furious with the delay. Starscream-more familiar with emotionally overwrought leaders who wanted to kill him-had merely been annoyed, and tired, and propped himself on the desk in front of Optimus to open his legs. Revealed his input valvae, both of them, the tight-constructed seals, that lubricant glisten.

"You want this, don't you, Prime? You want to put your forged device into this cold-constructed valvae? You want to punish me for daring to think I'm your equal?"

Optimus had remained silent behind his mask. Had not spoken for several seconds.

When he did, spoken as flat in affect as his Primal decrees. "I don't have time for this, Starscream."

A cold as liquid hydrogen, but not without conviction, and afterwards Prime's breath fell out of him as if he'd been hit.

#

The idea was as much born from an exasperated comment from Windblade's as it was Rattrap's mad suggestion. The citizens of both colonies were living in a state of confusion. On one hand they wanted a leader of their own choosing, but on the other hand, a living Prime!

But the result would mean Starscream having unfettered access to rule both Caminus and Cybertron.

He put it to Her, the Caminus Goddess, sly and seductive, the ultimate politician. The Keeper of the Flame swallowed it, bait and all.

"A sacred marriage?" she repeated. "Between one chosen by the people and one chosen by Primus? It could be the solution to all our problems. Yes. The idea is sound. I will officiate."

As in all great plans, Optimus was the last to know. And honestly, Starscream had only tabled it as part of his mental warfare against the corroded Autobot. He always knew Optimus would refuse.

It would make a good political strategy. Show his inner circle how uncommitted Optimus was.

#

He said yes.

#

Starscream had found out later Optimus had been struggling with his own concerns. He had never been fit to rule, really. More of a brute suited to war, not the Senate.

It was hard to drag him out of the library and in front of a crowd.

There had been some talk in Optimus' camp of an alliance to smooth this age of transition. But it was known how unyielding both parties were. One might accuse the other of capitulating.

They also agreed. A fake marriage could work just as well.

#

The pubic announcement was met with some disbelief.

No, scratch that. A lot of disbelief. Starscream gave a speech about uniting factions and planets, of casting off old ways, of a partnership forged in the fires of Cybertron's rebuilding. It was an inspiring speech, one of his best.

A manipulative political alliance, is what the news-criers called it.

Fake, was the word on the street.

Optimus, when he finally deigned to make an appearance, was evasive in front of the vid-captures.

_Why him? Why him? Why do this, if at all?_

"Because I love him," he said simply.

#

The ceremony was massive, an even bigger event than his coronation. Starscream stood upon the dais and looked out over the cheering crowds. His spark felt as light and complete as it had ever been.

Lord Starscream.

Ultimate Leader.

Even Megatron had not managed this feat.

Then Optimus joined him, and a shadow fell over his success. Strange you don't think of these things until right at the last moment.

#

"I want the lights out." Optimus said. "When we do it."

Do it? What the hell did Prime think they were? The last thing on his mind was fucking the Autobot. After three days of celebration and aphrodisiac lubes shoved in every port-flap and valve, after three days of simulated sexual scenes designed to coax the new-wedded couple into peak arousal, the only thing on Starscream's mind was finding the best Caminus whorehouse and getting fucked six-ways-to-Diode-day. His valve was puckered and sore from constant excitement without resolution.

"This a fake marriage," Starscream snapped, agitated, wanting to leave, quench his thirst, assuage the ache. "For politics. It's not like we're Conjunx. It's not real."

Even under the mask Optimus looked miserable. "It might not work out that way."

#

It's quite astonishing to be so famous that you're recognized everywhere and the most known person on two planets.

It's not so welcome when three days of premium grade sex-lubricant is making you walk in a knock-kneed shuffle and all you want is the kind of attention that can only be paid for, but you can't get a whore anywhere.

And it doesn't do much for a politician's likeability scores when your unsuccessful quest to have your brain module fucked the hell out of you is broadcast on every vid-screen from here to Kaon the following morning.

A newly married mech shouldn't be seen skulking out of a brothel, and yet here he was, three times life size, displayed over the Ark 1 square. Political commentators made bets on how badly it had damaged Starscream's career, if he would even survive the next election.

Social satirists said _I told you so_.

Within hours vulgar graffiti appeared on walls all over Iacon.

The political pundits were harsh.

_What little else can we expect from Starscream. What did we expect? Honesty? He deceived Optimus Prime within hours of their wedding._

As usual Optimus, lying low and refusing to comment, came off shiny-clean. His reputation was, as always, immaculate.

"Shit Boss," said Rattrap after seeing a faction leader screaming from his pulpit. "All this makes you look pretty bad."

#

"Seems you can't make a single decent move without sabotaging yourself," Windblade said later, when Starscream crept towards the Titan-head, the only place he wasn't harangued by a crown of mechfluid-thirsty media.

She didn't seem so upset. Starscream suspected elation. Optimus could seek divorce now, and Starscream would be ruined.

"Where's Optimus?"

"Like you care?"

He did, actually. The fool was so image-conscious. If Starscream was going to crash and burn, he wasn't going to do it passively. He would damage-control the fallout.

#

The riots began in Tarn. The irony of it, as Tarn of the DJD would not have permitted such pseudo religious nonsense as a sacred marriage, and yet here were the citizens of his namesake threatening to burn down the local council-tower.

And then, in the evening Optimus Prime at last presented himself for the hungry mob. They vowed to bring him justice, to avenge his reputation against this traitor who had cuckolded him.

Starscream watched his enemy on a small vid-screen in his tower. He folded his arms and screwed up his face until the metal in his cheeks made squeaking noises.

"You don't have to watch this, Boss," Rattrap said. "You know he's only going to rubbish you and make himself look good."

_Silence_, Prime was saying, a harsher tone than Starscream had heard before. _You will not speak ill of my Conjunx. This thing that Starscream has done? He did because I told him to._

#

Starscream listened in bewilderment as Prime defended him.

Optimus admitted to impotency, a lack of vigor upon being called to perform. 4 million years of fighting had reduced him in some areas. A dreadful embarrassment, but it was more important that Starscream's good name not be smirched. Had sent Starscream to a brothel despite Starscream's noble protests. It was wrong for a mech not to receive pleasure upon his wedding night.

It was, he said. An ultimate act of charity.

One canny commentator said, _I see he's taught you to lie._

Prime waved him away. "I have told no untruth."

#

Now all eyes were on them.

#

Optimus hated the pit-fighting contests, but the citizens loved them, and it was the kind of place where two mechs trying to prove to a fragile world that they were genuinely in love with each other and not a pair of political manipulators from the bad old days might show up.

Starscream heard their murmurs of approbation as soon as he transformed at the entrance gate, having flown out from a meeting of ex-Decepticons wanting to declare fealty.

"You came alone," simpered one fight promoter.

"Lord Prime is busy," Starscream sniffed.

Moments later he arrived. Starscream didn't know what to do. Optimus took his hand as if he were holding a Sparkeater's leash, and they stood slightly apart, clumsy and not in love, neither of them good at pretending this.

There were whispers wherever they went. Starscream half wanted to let go and shout, "You're right. Its lies. All of it."

_Are you happy?_ Someone asked.

The arm across his shoulders was stiff and tense.

"Yes," Optimus said.

#

Awkward hand-holding would not suffice for a relationship in the eyes of the public. In between matches Starscream stood up, made overtly bedroom eyes at a place in between Optimus' smokestack and his head, put on his best camera angle, and when he was certain their attention was held, pulled him into the private rooms, those places where lovers might consort.

Optimus stumbled along behind, clearly not wanting to display any kind of consent, but not wanting to have to make up yet another convoluted public statement.

Starscream knew these rooms. Lay back, aware his silhouette would be visible through the chain mail curtain.

Optimus sat uneasily nearby.

"For Primus sakes," Starscream hissed. "Move closer and put your hand on my leg."

"I don't really feel-"

"Just pretend, you fool."

A shuffle. Hand on his inner thigh, like a corpse had died there.

Starscream pushed his face forward. Ran his tongue over Prime's mask. "Come on then," Starscream said sulkily. "Put some effort into it. Pretend. You know we're being watched."

Optimus stopped. Pulled back slightly.

"If you knew that, why did you go out on our wedding night?"

"This is not the time-"

"I violated every moral code protecting you."

Starscream threw his forearm over his eyes. "Ugh, in case you didn't feel it in that do-gooder self of yours, I had every sex-unguent from here to the Mitteous Plateau shoved inside me over those days. If I didn't overload I was going to be gummed up for a month."

He removed his hand, glared at the bleak faceless individual he was trapped with. "And thanks to you, everything's stuck, inside there. I can't even pleasure myself."

"I gave you the option," Optimus said. "I wasn't going to make you suffer. All I wanted were the lights out."

Humorless laughter spluttered up inside him. "You? You were going to make me overload, you sexless junkyard heap?" His frustrations made him mean. Made him say nasty things. It was this corroded Autobot's fault his vaulted position was so tenuous. "Me? Who has experienced the pleasures of senators and whores? You're not even worth the consideration. Now stop acting so high and mighty and make believe you're Primus-rusting besotted with me so I can pretend you're worth a moment of my time."

He opened his legs, grinning and hating at the same time

Optimus pulled back. His eyes paled.

"What's wrong? Too good to touch a Cold Constructed mech?"

"No," Optimus said.

"Well stop mucking around then. Touch me."

Mutinously, Optimus raised his hands to his mouth. Spat mech-fluid onto his fingers. Then without warning Optimus pushed Starscream down onto the pillows and with two thick fingers penetrated him, one in each valve, slid deep into the last knuckle. Starscream yelped at the unexpected intrusion.

"What the hell-"

His body went into a spasm of paralysis. He had expected fumbling. Not this electric shock. Fingertips inside him, raking over the gummed surfaces, freeing the complicate assembly of wheels and pinions that made up his erotic centre. Manipulated the escapements, and Starscream gasped from the sensation, heard something coming out of his mouth that could have been a sob.

Three deep thrusts then, sending his counterweights spinning. As if from a million miles away someone swept open the chain mail curtain, ostensibly to talk to the newlyweds and congratulate them. Saw what they had to see. Starscream's legs akimbo. Optimus' fingers working enthusiastically in the valvae. Starscream shaking in the preludes to climax.

Take from that scene what you must.

He overloaded too quickly. Powerful shudders jolted through his mechanism. It was dreadfully unpleasant to be so manipulated into such a thing without the accoutrements of seduction. It was as if Optimus had just stuck his fingers in and flipped a switch inside him. He'd heard of whores who did it, to hurry a client along.

It was deeply, horribly impersonal, and when Optimus unceremoniously yanked his lubricant-wet fingers out out, Starscream's limbs gave way. He lay in a weak heap, his own lubricant puddling out of him.

Then Optimus rolled on top of him, and like Starscream had told him to, he _pretended_.

#

He learnt two things.

Optimus knew that thing the whores knew.

Secondly, if that was supposed to be the mimicry of interfacing, it was dreadful.

The fake-thrusts had no rhythm, no sense of entry or ecstasy. Their pelvises clashed with a relentless hammerstrike, as if he were the forge without the blade. No kiss or touch. No illusion of intimacy. Optimus stared at the opposite wall throughout the act, his mind clearly elsewhere. Small exhalations of effort. Trapped beneath that massive frame, Starscream could do little else but lie there, knowing they were being watched.

It went on and on. No sense of timing. No breath of arousal. There was nothing in this. Then Optimus faked the most implausible overload ever, as if he were clearing his throat or expressing a snort of irony, rolled off. Starscream's overload fluids stained him. He looked at the ceiling, where engravings of Autobot victories were writ in LED stars.

"Have you even had sex before?" Starscream hissed afterwards, frustrated, angry, close to tears. Everything had turned out wrong. He had expected to humiliate Optimus and tease him and make him beg. Or plead. Had expected the same spiteful little exchanges that made those loathed senators and officials debase themselves before Starscream.

Instead it was he who ended up humiliated.

"You haven't interfaced, have you? Nobody could purposefully be that bad."

"No." Optimus said frostily. "Never."

Stood up and left the alcove. And that was that.

#

(TO BE CONTINUED)


	2. Chapter 2

.

.

#

Afterwards he felt strange, unmoored almost, like a barrage balloon with all its tension wires clipped.

He's the chosen one. He's the savior, meant to reunite Cybertron with all the Titan colonies. He's meant for the greatest things.

The streets were strange in the darkness, winking and waiting. He wondered if Windblade was listening, her consciousness jacked into the city through Metroplex. _All seeing, all knowing._

What does she think of what him and Optimus have done? She could make the ground open up beneath his feet if she wanted to. His supreme power is being fractured and fractured into useless pieces.

#

To add to the annoyance, his valvae hurt. Which is why he'd never let inexperienced mechs at him, or up him. He'd never find a medic in Iacon who didn't know who he was, and having to explain why he'd got scuff-marks from a pair of fingers up an unaroused apparatus. (Mechs in a sacred marriage, a genuine foretold-in-the-stars spousal arrangement would quicken in he mere presence of their beloved, right? So whose whore-cunning fingers abraded the inside of Starscream's spectacularly constructed but utterly unresponsive apparatus? Whose fault?)

Probably best to self medicate and drink the pain away.

#

He slid into the bar. A dive. He couldn't really show his face in Maccadam's on account of the fall-out with Blur (oh for those Decepticon days when mechs just accidentally _died_ and nobody made much of an effort to find out why. It was a war, after all.) So his choices were limited to Rodian enegex haunts.

The Caminus traveler in the alley outside had sold Starscream a robe for a shanix. There was a time when a robed figure would arouse suspicion, but everyone's complicit in their shame now. War criminals skulked the streets, hooded, counting the days until they could afford a new body and put the past behind them. Murderers

He recognized nobody except Fat Tankor, probably in one of his several Maccadam's evictions due to brawling. And Blot, stewing in his own muck, in the corner, nursing a glass of low-grade enegex.

Starscream ordered a double.

A small vid-screen sat on the wall above the antique guns. Circuit's smug face reported on a fire in a desolately criminal-infested district. Then the program switched to one of those salacious bits of vid-screen programming, where citizens uploaded their stolen footage and a panel of particularly spiteful bots made fun of the unfortunates contained within.

Starscream watched in horror. Someone has lifted the security footage of his entire exchange in the alcove and sent it in to this muck-peddling video show. Judging from the bored expression of the enegex bar patrons, it had been played more than once tonight.

Starscream moved to exit the seat and flee, but instead tangled his elbow, knocked his drink to the ground.

"Here friend, let me refill that for you."

Rust it, it was Fat Tankor, leerily close. He couldn't hade made out Starscream from the cloak and hood, but he obviously sensed someone of importance.

"Uh, I was just leaving."

"After half a drink. You haven't even started. Barkeep!"

Starscream stared at the enegex. He didn't want to look at the screen. There was better-acted pornography out there than their by-the-numbers fauxnication.

"It's no wonder Prime couldn't get aroused on his wedding might," Fat Tankor said loudly. He was drunk. "If Starscream just lies there."

"Look," another mech replied. "Just rolls right off him afterwards. They did it for the cameras, Tankor. I'm telling you. The whole thing is a set-up to deceive us stupid rabble."

"You can't be serious."

Why would someone like Optimus Prime wanna frag a piece of trash like Starscream., huh? He'd get better interfacing poking his device into a pneumatic waste disposal tube." He sniggered to himself. "Get a tighter fit, that's for sure."

Tankor slapped Starscream on the back, right on the tender spot behind his wing. "What do you think, stranger? You can clear up this argument. It is really a fake marriage or is Lord Starscream just an exceptionally bad lay?"

"I have not been on this world long enough." Said in his best Caminus accent. At least there was some advantage to hanging around Windblade for so long. Primus, he had to get out of here.

"I've got more proof," Tankor said. "There's a rumor going around it's only half the footage we're seeing. Prime gave Lord Starscream a hard reboot."

"A what?" Starscream snapped, even before Tankor could explain.

"Oh you know," said the barfly with a dismissive gesture. Stuck both fingers skyward. "When a leaker's had too much juice shot through 'em. Overdosed. A finger down the throat or right up the valvae resets their air-intakes. Doesn't mean anything."

Starscream clutched his glass until cracks appeared. Those fingers had been in a leaking skiv's dirty valvae, hard-rebooting him from too much illicit enegex.

"I had a medic do it to me once, Tankor said prissily. "It's kind of like overload."

"You don't need to do a hard reboot, you rust-bucket, you just need to frag them!"

"Don't call me a rust-bucket!"

"Or what? Fat Tankor!"

"Oh, you asked for it!"

The pair knocked over their stools and started brawling. The barkeep threatened to call the cops. Starscream crept away.

#

"You made me look dreadful!" Starscream shouted at him. "Treated me like a filthy booster addict and couldn't even _interface_ with me properly!"

He knocked off Optimus' Judgment Crown from its stand, and in frustration kicked it across the room.

Optimus remained unmoved. "Starscream, calm down."

"Why did you say _yes_? Why did you even agree to it?"

"If I recall, the exercise benefited you more than it did me."

"Oh, it's easy for you," Starscream spat. "Great Optimus Prime, chosen of Solus. You get to maintain power simply by existing, you don't even have to _try_."

"It's not all about power," Optimus said. He retrieved the crown and put it back on its stand. One of the tines had dented inwards. "Maybe your problems might come down to chasing that, instead of helping people with it."

"Easy for you to say," Starscream sneered at him. "You speak with the privilege of someone who's never had _none_."

#

By the end of the week everyone had seen the illicit video.

Great for Optimus of course. The recording didn't cost him any points. Under the unsympathetic eye of the camera video-Optimus looked like he had the stamina of a turbofox.

The salacious public got more. An ex-lover came out of the metalwork to give an interview upon Starscream's lack of responsiveness, his uncreative lovemaking, his general poor form when it came to berth-room activities. All that from one drunken clumsy night.

Starscream destroyed his personal vid-screen and threw the stand at Scoop, who had come bearing the last of the begrudging wedding gifts.

Tension had taken up permanent residency inside his frame. He'd find an interfacing partner if he could. But who'll be with him now? He's given up even the agency of his own body to be married to the God of Solus..

Even Rattrap was starting to look good. 

#

Optimus came to Starscream a few days later. Crown in hand. "You were right. I shouldn't judge you. Everything I know has been in privilege. I forget how difficult it can be."

He's the last person Starscream wants to talk to. An hour before he'd tried to pleasure himself with the buzzing finial of a spacebridge support, straddling it and rubbing his sore vulvae against the patterned surface, only to slip off the platform and collapse at Windblade's sudden-appearing feet.

_What are you doing up there?_

_Uh, investigating the etchings._

She had known. She had known.

"Why are you here? It's not our assigned time."

"It's the Cold-Constructed Name-Day for your product run." Optimus said.

"You're not doing me a favor, reminding me. Our run was always considered _defective_."

Optimus shuffled, remembering perhaps that it was the Autobots who upheld some of the more bigoted ideas.

"Still. It's worth celebrating. I had a gift made for you."

"Leave it with the other gifts."

"It's rather bigger than that. You need to come with me to see it."

He had gone under protest, knowing that every day they spent out of the public eye together was a day for the talk to build and build. Already the Senate was planning a vote of no confidence. If you can't maintain the attention of a God, how can you hope to keep a population in similar thrall?

#

Strange, to be humbled by an image of yourself.

It was a nice statue, Starscream had to admit. Imposing in a respectful way. Not a Hero posture. Him in a earnestly defiant stoop by a broken flagpole, as if in his weariness he had still taken upon himself to keep the spirit of Cybertron aloft. It looked out over the Acrolight plaza, and in the dawn opening ceremony Optimus stood back and let Starscream have the attention, and the glory.

Mechs lined up to compliment Starscream. He lived for compliments as he lived for energon. He sat next to Optimus as poetry was recited in his name.

"Who chose it?"

"I did. I wanted something to capture your inner strength."

Now they both knew that Starscream's inner strength was completely predicated on his inner sense of narcissism and self worth, but it was a welcome gesture all the same.

And yet, a caveat. Not like Starscream to stand so by a flagpole. Maybe Optimus was trying to send him subtle behavioral hints.

_Act like that and you're likely to keep the populace on your side._

Not sure whether it was a suggestion or an order.

#

"Did you really stick your fingers up overdosing skivs?"

A sulky question, but asked anyway because he was feeling generous and he now had a big statue of himself in the middle of Iacon and everyone would see it, every day.

And the poems were full of flattery, and the evening reception after the unveiling was suitably worshipful of Lord Starscream, and Optimus stayed out of the way, and when he did make himself known, he gave Starscream the good kind of attention, the deferential kind, as if were Starscream were the conqueror and he merely occupied an advisory position.

And he was slightly drunk and also horny. Which he always was when his pride was stroked so. But that was where his pleasure ended, for the pretty mechs that would have once thrown him glances would look instead at the brute nest to him and decide any flirting wasn't worth it.

The thought of fragging wasn't far from his mind. Mindless dirty fragging, in some alley where nobody knew him. Hard metal thighs crashing into his own.

"Did you really make them overload to save their lives?"

"I did," said Optimus. "More than I would have liked."

"So did you volunteer a lot then?"

"We used to draw straws before each shift."

"Seems you lost a fair bit. Those fingers knew their way around."

He was grinning under his mask. His eyes sometimes crinkled along the aperture folds when he smiled. It had been a successful day. When the people of Cybertron were happy, Optimus was happy. Like an idiot. "I lost a lot. Then I realized I would always take the far-left straw, and my partners worked that out _well_ before I did."

Starscream snorted. "Dumb Autobot."

Optimus laughed then, deep baritone. "That's what they said."

And Starscream couldn't stand it any more and he lay back, opened his legs. His valvae were tight with frustration, knotted and inflamed.

"Starscream?"

"You rusted skiv-fucking fragger, do it to me, and make it _hurt_."

#

Called him all sorts of names. Had a lot of tension to get out of him. Those fingers were up a dirty skiv. Deep in a leaker's valvae. In him now. Lord Starscream, finger-fucked like a street whore on dainty pillows. Didn't care who saw.

Oh Primus, that overload. Both apparatus in succession. He contorted, impaled upon Optimus' expert hand, and let out a metal on metal wail. Optimus didn't stop, made Starscream roll onto his front and press his knees together like a frag-addict trying to tighten up a well-worn valvae, make himself look like he was worth the shanix.

Primus, _that_ overload. He didn't know Optimus knew such things. It just made him hungrier. God, he wanted to frag. Didn't care with who. He would take Optimus Prime's virginal device snapping off all the maker-seals inside him and pick out metal chips for a week, if it will stop this terrible, constant ache.

He could still feel those fingers inside him. Optimus had not been so perfunctory this time. Had slowed down, made Starscream writhe with anticipation before hitting the counterweight switches. Made him beg Optimus, beg to be treated like something worthless he might find on a Dead End Street.

Afterwards, lubricant-wet with his own double-climax, he straddled the big mech.

_Put your hands on my hips. Follow my lead_.

He found himself lost in a fantasy of penetration, of interfacing made a pace designed to tease and arouse. His own arousal was evident. He slid his swollen vulvae over the hard, angular crotch, doubled back, again.

Says things he hasn't thought through.

_Open up, let me rub on your device._

_You don't have to go inside me_

_Just let me feel, c'mon, c'mon_

Optimus should be thinking this ridiculous litany means anything, but it doesn't look like Optimus is thinking much at all. He's trembling, lets out a monosyllabic grunt between his clenched jaws, but its not false response. Starscream is turning this rusted heap of forged metal on.

A surge of anticipation, then Optimus' bucking up his hips like he's picking up parallel signals and he's all: _uh uh uh._

Yeah, yeah, that's it. Starscream pokes around the crotch for the latch to release the sexual apparatus. Big 'bots are known for small devices. Doesn't matter right now. It'll be enough to scratch Starscream's not inconsiderable itch. He'll frag Rattrap right now that how tight he is.

Yeah, yeah…

Then Starscream was pushed off.

He picked himself out of the platinum-weave of the cushions. "What the fraggin' hell?"

Optimus slid back, his Autobot blue eyes molten in horror. "I cannot. I must not. It is a sin. It is beyond wrong-"

Starscream leapt to his feet, shaking with indignant anger. Optimus had treated him like a boosted syphonist and then, in view of everyone rebuffed him. The sheer curtains of the snug held no privacy.

"_I am wrong_? I am sinful? The great God Prime can't stick his holy apparatus into a Cold Constructed valvae and instead fucks it like he'd fuck a boosted skiv?"

Said loudly. Said to shame, otherwise Starscream would wail from the unfairness of it, the humiliation at being so publicly rejected when he'd had an entire day of being treated like he'd always wanted.

"No I didn't mean-" Optimus stammered. "Let me explain."

He knows he's made a mistake. He knows

"I know what you meant. You Forged mechs are all the same, lording over us and thinking we're trash."

He tore through the curtain and pushed his way through the hushed crowd. Rattrap joined him, made tutting noises with his teeth.

"That didn't look to good, boss.'

Outside, it was Chromia, in her job as bodyguard, who headed him off.

"Where do you think you're going, Starscream? You just disgraced God. That won't go down well with the Camiens."

"Oh, ad what do you expect me to do?"

She looked at him. He saw the pity in her eyes. She put her hand on his shoulder. "Go back inside. Apologize. And work this out in private."

Starscream pushed her hand away.

"You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to find a cheap whore with a pretty little device. And then I'm going to frag him. And then I'm going to get a fragging divorce."

_-To Be Continued-_


	3. Chapter 3

POLITICS OF EXPERIENCE - PART 3

#

There was nothing he wanted in the bright streets. Slender, pretty Made-To-Orders that might have once caught his eye now held no erotic promise. They called to him and he ignored them. Well, maybe not all. His eyes moved to darker corners, interpolated hulking shapes. Secondary merchandise, the ones who would not be paraded for purchase. Cheaper stock, made for brutality, not pleasure.

He took the elevator down into the rusted levels, where mechs went about their business in quiet desperation. In the poorest part of the Dead End, nobody cared who you were. His valvae still ached, that curious juxtaposition between release and knotted anticipation.

More of those shadow-lurkers, hoping for trade. This time they didn't need to hide. A prostitute in a doorway beckoned wearily towards Starscream. An ex-Autobot soldier by the look of marks he had not yet been able to scratch off, still carrying wounds from a long ago battle. Starscream found himself slowing to stare. His mind did not register his interest. This corroded refuse of war. But his valve tightened.

_Two fingers, brutal, sheared down at the trigger-points, bright spots on dark metal knuckles from hard combat._

The prostitute stank of rust and old lubricant.

"How much," Starscream found himself asking.

"Two shanix," the prostitute said with a voice of clashing gears. Cheap. He had a mask, not a mouth, heavyset, old forged appearance about him. Such mechs were not sought after. Starscream was torn between loathing and a self-immolating need.

"Do you have apparatus? A spike, a device?"

It was an unusual request. Clients usually wanted valvae to fuck.

The prostitute nodded, pulled back. Starscream stepped sideways through the narrow door, suddenly not wanting to touch anything. An off-tone music. The grunting sounds of unabashed interfacing. The smell of leaking fluids.

He shuffled into a low, dim room. The prostitute was bigger than him. Starscream laid three Shanix on the low metal table.

"You do role-play?"

The prostitute looked about nervously. "Yeah." The mask moved as he spoke. " What do you want to do?"

Starscream panted. It was so hot in here. The berth was little more than chain-link over a metal frame.

"Cop. Iacon police. Arrest me. Put your fingers in me. Like I'm a leaker, a skiv needing reset. Then your apparatus. Both valves."

The whore barely made a shrug. Everyone had their deviances.

"Keep your mask up when you fuck me. Don't be fucking gentle, I'm paying for it."

Then the whore hit him.

Starscream, dazzled, fell back onto the berth. It was what he wanted. He opened his legs, panting. The whore yanked him over onto his belly, mounted him. "You're under arrest"

A finger penetrated his rear valve, but hardly deep enough for anything but the briefest spark of anticipation. Starscream canted his aft up, seeking depth. He was open and ready. He felt the whore's erect apparatus scrape against his thigh.

"Rust you, Optimus, rust you," Starscream said, and it came out with a high wail of necessity. "Give it to me, slagging Autobot."

"You're despicable."

"Yes, yes…" His lubricant dripped from him, slicked his thigh in silver. "Yes, oh Primus fuck me with your device..."

"And you're under arrest."

It didn't sound like the whore. Starscream on-lined his eyes. Found himself looking at a real badge in front of his face.

"You're fucking under arrest, Starscream of Vos but I ain't fucking you."

A wall slid aside. Three Autobots, one with a recording globe. Starscream scrambled upright from the shallow chain-link cot, but it was too late. His illicit sins were shining bright from between his legs.

"Ah Starscream," said one. "You betrayer, you filth. You are so done for."

#

"No," he pleaded "No."

They didn't listen to him. "This is for Optimus," one said, and hit him in the face. "This is for the Prime." Other fist.

The scrape of electrical clamps. "When we're finished, you'll not want another, ever again."

Screaming. His own voice echoing back in a small room.

"This is for your lies."

#

He woke in a med bay. His head pounding. He heard Optimus' voice, wanted to be sick. Perhaps he already had. Dried energon sputum about his lips, his neck.

He sat up.

"Oh no, now, you're not ready yet."

Some useless med-bot pushed Starscream back onto the berth.

"I gotta get outta here." His vocalizers were raw from screaming.

Then Optimus loomed over him, a shadow that could not be escaped. Starscream flinched. He saw a response in Optimus' bright Autobot blue eyes. Pity? Repulsion? Whatever way, he hated this mech with every fiber and cable, every strut and servo.

"Starscream, wait. My people are doing some damage control."

"So how are they going to explain footage of me in a whorehouse wanting my valvae fucked with a rusty apparatus, huh?" Starscream croaked. He could barely speak.

"Starscream-"

"I need it, you rusted excuse of a God. I need interfacing, hard devices inside me. And you could not give it to me." He lay back, and wondered if they had ruined his valvae in their punishment. It did not matter that Optimus was looking. He did a careful reconnaissance. Apart from scratches on his thigh, found himself intact.

Preserve the evidence, then.

The silence between them was thick and impenetrable. Then finally, Optimus said, "What do you want?"

"I want a divorce. You will announce that when I went to the prostitute we had decided on it. Retroactively sign the digital forms. Anything."

"Starscream, the Camiens, the Colonies, your career-"

"I don't care. I don't care about my own political career. I can't live like this!"

Then he was sick again, energon vomit and old hydraulic fluid. He was scuffed and stinking, as attractive as one of the leakers from Optimus' days on the cold metal streets.

Optimus turned to the rest of the people in the room. "Get out. All of you."

They scuttled away. Then Optimus knelt before Starscream. Starscream shuffled back as far as he could go.

"There is nothing you can say. You refused me in my time of need. I tried to find solace... tried to find a moment for myself and ease the ache of your enforced celibacy. I went to the most private place I knew, and still your people came to me and tortured me for it."

"I did not ask this. They will be punished."

Starscream snorted a laugh, but wanted to wail at the unfairness of it. "I am a prisoner. I am a slave to you as much as a war criminal."

"Can I explain?"

"All you do is talk."

H stood up and went to lock the door. There was nobody else in the medical rooms. Starscream decided they might be one in of the old slave runs. It was fitting, that he should be interred here.

Optimus sat on an empty munitions crate, His head hung, and his war-scarred hands clenched into fists before releasing.

"When I was newly forged I worked a beat. Good places and bad. Rodion mostly. You know. I saw too much, even before I had the neural connections to handle it. They haunt me still."

Starscream wanted to scoff, but something in the fraught tone of Optimus' voice stopped him.

"On the day of my coming-of-age I once saw a group of Forged mechs take a Cold Construct for their satisfaction. It was permitted, for them. They made me watch, as a fellow police officer. And I did. I was offered the remains. The fear in those dying eyes. They said to me, you are Forged. It is your right to take." Optimus looked at the floor. "After that I could not… not imagine... not conceive of taking pleasure from such an act, such a sin."

"But I was giving you permission."

"That victim gave me permission. He begged me. Because he knew only after I had taken him, would he be allowed to die. He begged me to interface, even the grotesquerie of pretending to enjoy, and want. And begged. I cannot. I cannot, Starscream.. unless…"

A wretched look in those half-hidden Autobot blue eyes, his deep shame.

"Unless what?" Starscream asked uneasily.

"Unless it be done in love."

"There is no love between us."

"The simulacra of it. Even if it's pretend. Then I could do it. I could. And we could stay married."

#

The _stupidity_ of it, more like. But Cybertron would burn, otherwise. They needed to stay together even though everyone and everything were trying to pull them apart. Optimus left Starscream to heal and to figure it out.

During his moments in a stasis tank, he stared through the ink-hued liquid in abhorrence and defeat. Optimus wanted romance, and the pretence of love to break the conditioning of a million years. Spelt it out. Optimus wanted a romance, first dates, first kisses, the exploration of bodies.

Explore? What on Starscream's body was there that didn't come off a conveyor belt? Love belonged to the Forged. Starscream's double-valvae was off the shelf and common. But the stupid Autobot wanted love in order to facilitate a sexual response. And Starscream had to play along and make Optimus believe his affections were reciprocated.

Well, he was a Decepticon. And what better thing could he do other than lie?

#

As much as Optimus' people had tried to stop the video coming out, it had come out.

Starscream in the shadowy room. Big forged 'bot with a mask. His obscene request. _Cop. Iacon police. Arrest me. Put your fingers in me. Like I'm a leaker, a skiv needing reset. Then your apparatus. Both valves._

It became a bit of a joke, in the end, that Starscream visited cheap whores behind Optimus Prime's back. The statue was desecrated more than once. Younger mechs would take lewd pictures of themselves in front of it.

_When would Optimus stop supporting this deceiver? _They asked on vid-shows and park pulpits._ Was he purposefully being obtuse?_

All of Cybertron was waiting for their next public appearance, the next deliciously embarrassing moment. It had turned into a game on the talk shows. What Would Starscream Do Next? Public exhortations to Optimus Prime to save himself were given. _Starscream is not right for you. He shames you and makes you look the fool._

Optimus never responded. But for a time, he was not seen in the presence of Starscream either. The mechs of both worlds suspected what it meant.

#

The Annual Cybertron Grand Races began again, the first for millions of years. Now the couple, Prime and Chosen, would either have to go together, or they would have to admit the marriage was over. It was rumored that more mechs were in attendance just to see how miserably Prime and Starscream could pretend to be a couple than they were actually interested in to seeing the races.

Starscream received a grudging missive from Prime's camp. "He'll pick you up."

Optimus arrived at Starscream's quarters with some flasks of a delicate energon. A gift. Starscream had been spending his time walking the tower in high anxiety. He knew what was being said about him on the streets and in the Cybertronian media. He knew that a terrible humiliation was about to occur.

"Drink it," Optimus said. "It'll make you feel better."

Starscream drank mutinously, and he did feel a little better. Optimus stood in the corner of the room and watched him. Trying to convince himself of love, probably. After Starscream had agreed in the med-bay to letting Optimus shipwreck himself on emotional shores, Optimus had rather made himself conspicuous in his absence. This was their first meeting since then.

Starscream was too tired and disheartened to flirt. He didn't even put his mind to arousal. Optimus seemed a little distant, would not look at him.

"I'll meet you at the arena entrance,"

Starscream nodded, and watched Optimus leave. No use in waiting for the inevitable, and prolonging the horror.

The racing arena, rebuilt as it had been in the Golden Age. All glitter and show lights, just like it had been in the days before the Decepticons.

Optimus arrived as Starscream transformed down to ground level. The crowd surged around them, rabidly curious. Before witnesses, Optimus took hold of Starscream about his waist, held onto him defiantly. A gesture of solidarity more than romance. And Starscream knew that advisers had advised, had told Optimus to divorce him, and curiously felt gratitude that he be supported so, in public. Normally it was only him and his ego against the world. A fearsome combination.

"Doesn't it bother you," a reporter asked while Starscream was there, "This video that's going around?"

"It bothers me that they arrested Starscream so soon." A mutinous audacity from Optimus then. The hand about Starscream's waist tightened protectively. "I ask these things of my bonded."

"You asked him to cuckold you with a whore?"

Optimus was being pushed to the limits of his morality, and still had not released him. "Our sex life is rich and adventurous," Optimus continued through static. "I send him to experience all that Cybertron is and we re-enact them in the berth room."

It sounded ridiculous. Starscream felt an almost dizzy sense of gratitude.

"That's rather kinky of you, Optimus Prime," the reporter said.

"The disappointment is that I have to explain our private life to you at all."

After the thwarted reporter left, and the onlookers thinned out with the help of the security, Starscream turned to his unlikely savior.

"I will kiss you now," Starscream said. "Rust them all."

Optimus glanced up. They were being watched. A hundred eyes wanted to see the reaction to his strange explanation.

"Let us dance first. I don't want to think of this moment. Then let's kiss. It will be my first."

#

They danced this time. Starscream led. A big fuck-you tango. Starscream wanted to show them all. Was sinuous against Optimus' frame. In his heightened sense of heroism, Optimus (of course) was responsive to Starscream's teasing.

_He wants to be in love._

Starscream wanted the others to see this.

"Your body feels good," Starscream said seductively, and declined to mention its massive, brutishness, its war-hardened power.

"Does it?" Optimus asked, seeking confirmation.

A machine of War. It would never feel good. Starscream, always a false deceiver, stroked Optimus as if he were slender and beautiful. A dozen cameras were watching, The attention made him slick in his valve, and on his mouth. He moved his hands along the bulky thighs, the metallic slabs of aft.

"Perfectly constructed."

Until finally they were up against a shadowed wall, and Starscream's legs were about Optimus' waist, and the big mech's hands scraped and prodded.

Oddly, the thought of all those witnesses made his heat come back. Pushed Optimus' mask aside, and kissed that Forged mouth. Put his forked tongue in there. The first to do so. Optimus grunted and responded clumsily. He wasn't much of a kisser. This act was too strange to be erotic. His apparatus cover remained closed.

Wasn't certain how to approach this. Optimus wasn't ready yet. Starscream pulled away, panting.

Optimus' eyes on him, bright, bright.

#

They went to other places. Other events. Photographed together. Optimus barely leaving Starscream's side. Starscream flirted for the cameras. For the big Autobot. He only wanted to fuck without the danger of being dragged and humiliated in front of the media, and wanted Optimus to hurry the fiction along.

Optimus was undergoing his own private, internal journey. Was reveling in his self-deception, in this deceitful false love. Sought more kisses from Starscream. Not just in public. Got a little better each time. The programs of arousal came into effect.

Starscream found himself looking forward to the times when they would be together, that each day held the promise of sex and overload. Felt restless and anxious when they were apart. Thought of sex constantly, and oddly, the fingers that he fantasized about were Optimus' fingers, buried to the final knuckle, wrenching overload out of him. Found himself contacting Optimus in the middle of the Cybertronian night. Just to talk. To hear his deep voice in the darkness. Optimus obliged. Suffered the pangs of jealousy when he heard about Optimus with others. Didn't know why. It was the lack of overload. He was going mad.

#

Not really an official attendance, but their presence had been requested by the Camiens. The unveiling of a new, rebuilt city precinct for returnees. The atmosphere had a freewheeling intimacy, and Optimus was responding to it.

He dallied openly with Starscream. Caressed hips and thigh with those hands that brought such wrenching sensations. Made a joke in front of others, a double entendre.

Starscream knew he cold bear it no longer. Since they'd made their pact, Optimus had not pressed his reset buttons at all. He was dying to overload.

Until the moment they were alone and tangled in the kind of embrace that only hotted Starscream up cruelly, the sound of Optimus' panting as they rubbed hard surfaces, the kind of moment that made Starscream let out unverbal requests for the deep overload Optimus never gave him any more.

He was so close. Optimus must have barely felt Starscream unhooking the clasps to his apparatus.

"I want to see you. Please, please"

"Do you love me?" Optimus asked between breaths.

"Yes," Starscream lied.

With a murmur, Optimus released himself.

And Starscream's breath caught.

He was huge, there. A thick, forged apparatus of the kind phased out millennia ago for being too terrifying and grotesque in its symbology. A device made to conquer and to fuck, and not much else. No wonder Optimus hid it away.

No maker-seals on the long length. So he'd masturbated at once, to overload climax. No other marks, so it was only once. Starscream imagined furtive shame, knowing that he possessed this monstrous tool of sexual dominance that no mech could look on without fear. A regular mech would receive no pleasure from this thing inside him.

"Say it's beautiful," Optimus said, a terrified honesty in his eyes, coupled with a obstinacy that said he was ready to defend his particular, foolish fantasy the same way he defended Starscream to the reporter. He knew exactly what his apparatus was, knew that Starscream did not look at it in anything less that abhorrence. "Tell me it is delicately and perfectly made. And-"

Old, sexless robot. Didn't even have the vocabulary to describe what he wanted.

"Sit down," Starscream said.

Optimus sat, his apparatus up thrust between his legs, shame and terror combined.

Starscream knelt and ran his tongue over the head, a museum piece of ball-bearings set within gimbals, so that the massive head rolled smoothly, sharp with forged lubricant. Then set about testing the teeth on the gear wheels. Didn't they know anything about simplicity?

Silence from above. Optimus said nothing, and mad no sound.

He rolled the valvae opening over the head of the apparatus, halfway terrified of an Optimus overwhelmed by lust, pushing that monstrous device beyond the capacity of his valvae. And half of him wanted to be stretched open and plundered until climax.

He made his voice low. and cuning. "Your apparatus is far too precious and fragile to be used in brutish intercourse," Starscream simpered. "How small and perfect it is."

Optimus whimpered. It was a deep fantasy then, to be delicate and small. Starscram straddled the Autobot. His forward valvae slick and hot.

Starscream kept saying it as he pushed himself-hoarse with the stretch and pain-down until Optimus was fully seated into his body. His internal mechanica found old transformational patters, rearranged to fit this legacy apparatus, slid buried wheels and fidgets into the tourbillion of his valvae,

And then he began to undulate with slow deliberation, put n his movements in sync with the tock and counterweight of Optimus' device.

No great declarations of ecstasy. Only the eyes going pale, his great body trembling. Optimus' heels scraping fretfully on the ground as he tried to raise himself and claim more of this unbearable well of pleasure. Then he stiffened, and his hands griped Starscream's pelvis hard enough to leave dents.

_Oh Starscream_, he said, _oh you are holy._

An inhale. Inchoate cry. And Starscream was filled.

#


End file.
